Utah - The Third Week

We are moving into our last week in Utah and have enjoyed splendid weather thus far. It's been beautifully sunny and just warm enough to make the camping reasonably comfortable, but the climbing conditions are good too. The forecast for the rest of the week is still quite good, so we are counting ourselves lucky. We are all doing well and our fitness is improving after a tough summer dealing with injuries. Elise has been hiking to the Pipe Dream cave each day, which is a 30-minute uphill hike, so her fitness is improving too. Pictures from the week:

The fall colours are beautiful here right now. The canyon is full of oak and maple, and the leaves are turning all shades of orange and red. This is something we just don't see around Vancouver very often.


Elise playing on the mat in the morning beside our campsite. She knows I work on many of our days off from climbing, and told me that she was going to "come into town and do her work today". This "work" would consist of creating animal scenes with her horse stickers. She also has a book for drawing in (a sketch book), which she refers to as her "scrith" book. We find this term quite amusing.

The other day at the cliff, she was sitting on her mat with a one-year-old girl while the adults climbed. It was a warm day and the baby was partially in the sun. Elise suddenly called to the parents and said, "You're baby is smokin' hot!" This statement could be interpreted in a few different ways, and we all had a good laugh over it.


We drove a highway called Skyline Drive, which traverses a long ridge above the valley. The aspens were turning yellow and the colours were beautiful. Elise calls them "tumbling aspen".


We fished in a reservoir and enjoyed relaxing in the sun. Here is Elise fishing. She's not all that patient, truth be told, and I have to usually take over and hold the line until there's some action. She then comes running back in to land "her catch". And, of course, I'm always the one who has to worm the hook and de-hook the fish.


"We" caught a fish! It was a decent sized rainbow trout, but it was an albino so it was white with orange highlights and red eyes - truly bizarre. Elise wanted to take it home and eat it (again), but I was leery of the albino trout and opted to put it back. Something didn't feel right...

Pam got in on the action and started fishing with Elise's Dora the Explorer fishing rod.


She also landed an albino trout - her second fish as an adult. We threw that one back too.


Elise in the meadow by the lake.


Finally, here is a photo of "B.K", Elise's most precious stuffed animal. B.K. has been around the block, and I thought I'd get a photo of him wedged in the cobbles at Maple Canyon, for posterity's sake.


We should be home early next week (October 6th to 8th) depending on weather and climbing accomplishments. We are having a nice, relaxing, healthy time here and hope you are all doing well!

Marc